''Loves of a Blonde'' ( cs, Lásky jedné plavovlásky), also known as ''A Blonde in Love'', is a 1965 Czechoslovak
comedy-drama
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
film directed by
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968.
Forman ...
that follows a young woman, Andula, who has a routine job in a shoe factory in provincial Czechoslovakia, and her attempts at forging a romantic relationship.
Forman based his story on a real-world incident from his past and the filmmakers created a real-life look and feel by filming on location in a small Czech town with a shoe factory, utilizing a largely non-professional cast, relying on a considerable amount of dialogue improvisation, and employing documentary-style cinematographic techniques.
Upon its release, ''Loves of a Blonde'' was popular in its home country and was shown at some major film festivals, where it garnered a number of nominations and awards. Critical response was largely positive, although some reviewers were less enthusiastic than others. The film is now considered one of the most significant examples of the
Czech New Wave
The Czechoslovak New Wave (also Czech New Wave) is a term used for the Czechoslovak filmmakers who started making movies in the 1960s. The directors commonly included are Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Pavel Juráček, Jiří Men ...
, a movement which took advantage of a temporary relaxation of totalitarian control over creative artists to use cinema as a means to explore new narrative strategies while making pointed critiques of social and political conditions behind the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
. ''Loves of a Blonde'' was nominated for the 1966
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
.
Plot
Andula is a working-class young woman living in a fading Czech factory town, where, due to an oversight in central state planning, women outnumber men 16–1. The film opens with an intimate scene between Andula and her fellow shoe-factory-worker friend as they lie in bed in their dormitory discussing the ring given to Andula by her boyfriend Tonda and gossiping about her mildly flirtatious encounter with a forest ranger, which is shown in flashback.
The factory supervisor belatedly realizes that the gender disparity is impairing morale and productivity, so he arranges for an army officer to organize military maneuvers near the town in order for the factory to sponsor a big dance, at which the workers can find male companionship among the soldiery. "They need what we needed when we were young", he explains to a sympathetic officer. Anticipation runs high on both sides, with the girls expecting to meet the young men of their dreams, while the recruits, many of whom are actually middle-aged reservists, out-of-shape and already married, look forward to a night of revelry and seduction. The night of the party is a disappointment for some members of both groups; Andula and her friends are repulsed by the unappealing soldiers, whom they call "old buffers," and a trio of reservists are so nonplussed by the situation that they commit a series of comic faux pas, like sending a bottle of wine to the wrong table and dropping a wedding ring that one of them is trying to hide, only to watch it roll across the floor and land at the feet of the forlorn young women who they had mistakenly sent the bottle to. For these people, the mixer is a huge flop, with the girls retiring to the lavatory to devise a way to escape their pursuers and the aging reservists arguing with each other over expenses (one points out that "you can only get it
exfree at home") and speculating on the necessity of going to the woods in order to consummate their romantic plans ("Imagine, in this weather!"). For others, however, the dance is a success: the factory supervisor looks on in smug satisfaction as couples throng the crowded dance floor, one girl holds her hands together in a gesture showing her delight and gratitude when she is asked to dance, while an obese, balding soldier capers with a tall, thin brunette, both clearly having the time of their lives.
Andula strikes up a flirtation with Milda, the big-city pianist of the band providing the music. He reads her palm and instructs her in how to rebuff unwanted advances with a kick in the shins. After the party she goes to bed with Milda, although the comic frustrations continue, with Milda fighting a battle with a window shade that won't close, before he feels secure in making love. Afterward, as they lie in bed together, Andula asks what Milda meant when he said she was "angular". He replies that a woman is shaped like a guitar: "And you, you look like a guitar too", he tells her, "but one painted by
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
."
Although she hears nothing from Milda after their night together, she still expects to reunite with her dream man shortly, so she breaks off with Tonda, who storms the dormitory demanding his ring back. After listening to a speech by the housemother on the virtues of fidelity and commitment, she packs up her suitcase and arrives on Milda's doorstep in the big city, ready to resume their romance. Milda is not home, and she meets his parents, who have never heard of her and don't know what they should do with her. Milda comes home very late, and after an evening of comically painful tension and uncertainty, his parents decide it's only decent to put the girl up for the night on the sofa, requiring Milda to climb into bed with them in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Forman has described this famous scene: "It’s a tight fit. The old man wants to sleep; the son would like to get thrown out so he can join the girl on the couch, but the mother runs the show and won’t tolerate any such filthy ideas under her roof." Andula, kneeling outside the door of their bedroom, overhears the family squabbling, and when it becomes clear to her that she is not valued in the least, she breaks down in tears and, the next morning, returns to her home. She tells her friends about her "wonderful" trip to the capital and how nice Milda's parents were to her, especially his father, and then she returns to work at the factory.
Cast
![Hana Brejchová (1966)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Hana_Brejchov%C3%A1_%281966%29.jpg)
*
Hana Brejchová
Hana Brejchová (born 12 December 1946) is a Czech former actress
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such ...
as Andula
*
Vladimír Pucholt
Vladimír Pucholt (born 30 December 1942) is a Czech-Canadian actor and physician.
Life
Vladimír Pucholt was born in Prague, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Republic). His father was a lawyer. He was not allowed t ...
as Milda
*
Vladimír Menšík
Vladimír Menšík (9 October 1929 – 29 May 1988) was a popular Czech actor and entertainer, born in Ivančice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia.
Both comedian and serious actor, he created a wide range of lively characters. He starred in more than 12 ...
as Vacovský
*
Ivan Kheil as Maňas
*
Jiří Hrubý as Burda
*
Milada Ježková as Milda's Mother
*
Josef Šebánek Josef may refer to
*Josef (given name)
*Josef (surname)
* ''Josef'' (film), a 2011 Croatian war film
*Musik Josef
Musik Josef is a Japanese manufacturer of musical instruments. It was founded by Yukio Nakamura, and is the only company in Japan spe ...
as Milda's Father
*
Josef Kolb Josef may refer to
*Josef (given name)
*Josef (surname)
* ''Josef'' (film), a 2011 Croatian war film
*Musik Josef
Musik Josef is a Japanese manufacturer of musical instruments. It was founded by Yukio Nakamura, and is the only company in Japan spe ...
as Pokorný
*
Marie Salačová
Marie may refer to:
People Name
* Marie (given name)
* Marie (Japanese given name)
* Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973
* Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in T ...
as Marie
*
Jana Nováková
Jana may refer to:
Entertainment
* Jana (film), ''Jana'' (film), a 2004 Tamil film by Shaji Kailas
* Jana (singer) (born 1974), Serbian singer
* Jana (Native American singer), née Jana Mashonee
* ''Jana of the Jungle'', animated series created b ...
as Jana
*
Táňa Zelinková as Girl
*
Zdena Lorencová
Zdena may refer to:
* Zdena, river in Sanski Most
* Zdena Herfortová (born 1945), Czech film and stage actress
* Zdena Salivarová (born 1938), Czech-born writer and translator
* Zdena Studenková (born 1954), Slovak film and stage actress
* ...
as Zdena
*
Jan Vostrčil
Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to:
Acronyms
* Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN
* Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code
* Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group
* Japanese Article Numb ...
as Colonel
*
Antonín Blažejovský
Antonin, Antonín, and Antoñín are masculine given names. Antonín, a Czech name in use in the Czech Republic, and Antonin, a French name in use in France, and French-speaking countries, are both considered alternate forms of Antonino. Antoñí ...
as Tonda
Production
Background
![Milos Forman](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Milos_Forman.jpg)
Miloš Forman's first feature film
''Černý Petr'' (''Black Peter'') was released in 1964 and was not viewed favorably by Czech governmental authorities until it was selected for competition at that year's
Locarno Film Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, s ...
, where it won the
top prize, thereby gaining the approval of Czechoslovakia's communist bureaucracy and making it possible for Forman to pursue further projects with relative freedom.
Unsure of what the next project should be, Forman recalled an experience he'd had driving around Prague late one evening when he'd encountered a young woman struggling to cross a bridge while carrying a heavy suitcase. He gave her a lift and learned her story: she had come to the big city from
Varnsdorf
Varnsdorf (; german: Warnsdorf, hsb, Warnoćicy) is a town in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 15,000 inhabitants. It lies on the border with Germany.
Administrative parts
Villages of Studánka and Světliny 1.díl ...
, where she had been seduced by a young engineer, who had given her a phony address in
Žižkov
Žižkov is a cadastral district of Prague, Czech Republic. Most of Žižkov lies in the municipal and administrative district of Prague 3, except for very small parts which are in Prague 8 and Prague 10. Prior to 1922, Žižkov was an indepen ...
and promised to take her away from her dreary life. After confirming that she had been duped, Forman interviewed the girl for much of the rest of the night, before putting her on a train back to her home town.
Commentators have noted that Forman was particularly sensitized to such situations because when he was 10, his mother had been taken away by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
, never to be seen again, which led to years of Forman traveling around searching for security with nothing but a suitcase.
In Forman's words: "I guess I'll always be moved by the sight of a young person with a suitcase seeking a connection in a strange city."
Forman recounted this memory to fellow film enthusiasts and colleagues
Ivan Passer
Ivan Passer (10 July 1933 – 9 January 2020) was a Czech film director and screenwriter, best known for his involvement in the Czechoslovak New Wave and for directing American films such as '' Born to Win'' (1971), ''Cutter's Way'' (1981) and '' ...
and
Jaroslav Papoušek
Jaroslav Papoušek (19 February 1920 – 16 July 1996) was a Czech film director and screenwriter. He started as a sculptor, before writing screenplays with Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer. In 1968 he started directing his own screenplays.
Sele ...
and asked them if it might be the basis for a good film. "Maybe", replied Passer, "but it still needs one more thing – a billiards table."
The trio had a passion for billiards and felt that they could make a success of even the weakest idea if they had ready access to a table.
Having found a good one at
Dobříš Castle, the three, along with Václav Šašek, wrote a screenplay that fleshed out Forman's encounter with the young woman from Varnsdorf.
When the finished script was submitted to the Šebor-Bor production team, it was approved at first, only to have the chief of the script department pronounce it the dullest thing he'd read in years and urge Forman not to proceed with the project, since it would spoil the good reputation the director had established with ''Black Peter''. In Forman's words: "It wasn't arty enough, but, on the other hand, it didn't have enough commercial appeal either. It would offend and irritate the public, he told me, because it made fun of the common man, who would be disgusted by it." Despite this objection, Vlastimil Harnach, the head of the studio, approved proceeding with the film in part because, due to the political and cultural thaw in Czechoslovakia at the time, decision makers were anxious to avoid the appearance of overt administrative interference in the creative process.
Casting
![Laďa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/La%C4%8Fa.jpg)
Forman and his colleagues were committed to the strategy of casting non-professionals and using dialogue improvisation whenever possible.
Most of the actors were chosen from among relatives, friends and acquaintances of Forman and his crew, to the point where Forman was later to liken the atmosphere to making a "home movie".
For the title role, Forman selected his 18-year-old ex-sister-in-law,
Hana Brejchová
Hana Brejchová (born 12 December 1946) is a Czech former actress
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such ...
, because he had known her a long time, trusted her, and had great respect for her natural talents: "She had an amazing ability of free expression, but with the risk that she didn’t recognize the extent. However, Vláďa Pucholt
ho played Mildaheld her firmly in the rhythm of the scene, in a professional position."
The character of Milda's father was played by the uncle of
Miroslav Ondříček
Miroslav Ondříček (4 November 1934 – 28 March 2015) was a Czech cinematographer who worked on over 40 films, including ''Amadeus'', ''Ragtime'' and '' If....''.
Life and career
Miroslav Ondříček was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now P ...
's wife, and Milda's mother was played by a factory lathe operator whom Passer and Papoušek had met on a streetcar, and who struck them as someone who "seemed so interested in things around her, no matter how silly". The factory supervisor was played by the actual public relations manager of the factory at
Zruč nad Sázavou
Zruč nad Sázavou () is a town in Kutná Hora District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 4,700 inhabitants.
Administrative parts
Villages of Domahoř, Dubina, Nesměřice and Želivec are administrative parts of Z ...
, where location shooting took place. For the main trio of reservists, Forman wanted to use non-professionals, including the writer
Josef Škvorecký
Josef Škvorecký (; September 27, 1924 – January 3, 2012) was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the ...
, but found that, while the three men did well improvising together whenever they appeared in pairs, they lost their rhythm when all three were included in the same shot. So Forman went to Škvorecký and told the writer that he looked too intelligent to play his role and replaced him with the professional actor
Vladimír Menšík
Vladimír Menšík (9 October 1929 – 29 May 1988) was a popular Czech actor and entertainer, born in Ivančice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia.
Both comedian and serious actor, he created a wide range of lively characters. He starred in more than 12 ...
. In Škvorecký's words: "To tell someone that he is too intelligent to be an actor is a very nice way of letting him know that he should stay with screen-play writing. Milos is a very considerate person. The fact that he so gently threw me out made possible the greatest scene of ''Loves of a Blonde''".
Forman was later to justify his decision to add a professional: "While nonactors keep the actors honest and real, the actors give the scene the rhythm and shape that the nonactors don't feel. A nonactor inhabits the situation so completely that he or she isn't able to view it from the outside, to perceive it as a rhythmic whole with its punctuation and its larger dramatic purpose. Nonactors are perfectly content to repeat themselves and ramble on, so an actor can pull them through the dramatic arch of the scene and draw out the emotional contours of the situation."
Ironically, the least self-confident performer in the film was one of the few professional actors: Vladimír Pucholt, who played the pianist. According to Forman: "This great actor, who had tremendous artistic intuition, completely mistrusted his talent. I think this was because he had a very rationalist disposition and could never see, much less measure, the result of his acting. 'Was it good, Mr. Forman? 'he asked me after every perfect shot. 'It was excellent!' 'Really?' 'Really.' He never believed me and all of us loved him."
Filming
![Zruč nad Sázavou, Sázava, ze zámku](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Zru%C4%8D_nad_S%C3%A1zavou%2C_S%C3%A1zava%2C_ze_z%C3%A1mku.jpg)
Since he was working with a largely non-professional cast, Forman's operating procedure was never to share the script with any of the performers, because if he had given them the screenplay, "they’ll take it home to read, and their wives will end up directing your movie".
Instead, he chose to explain each scene in great detail just before starting to shoot takes, reciting the dialog from memory only one time, so that when the camera was rolling the actors had to try to remember as much as they could of what he had told them and then improvise to the best of their ability what they had forgotten or only half-understood.
His cameraman was later to say that, as a result, all the performers were playing Miloš Forman playing their roles.
The cinematographer for ''Loves of a Blonde'' was
Miroslav Ondříček
Miroslav Ondříček (4 November 1934 – 28 March 2015) was a Czech cinematographer who worked on over 40 films, including ''Amadeus'', ''Ragtime'' and '' If....''.
Life and career
Miroslav Ondříček was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now P ...
, like Forman a graduate of the
FAMU.
Ondříček and Forman had met at Czechoslovakia's
Barrandov Studios
Barrandov Studios is a set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe.
Several major Hollywood productions have been made here, including ''Mission Impossible'', '' ...
in the early 1960s when Ondříček was just learning to shoot feature films and Forman was struggling to create his own early projects. Ondříček was in full accord with Forman's reliance on non-professional actors, adopting a
cinéma-vérité style compatible with orthodox
socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
. Ondříček was schooled in documentary filmmaking and, as a result, he insisted on performing all photographic tasks, like focus, lighting and composing, personally, while refusing access to the set by all film editors, saying: "The editor can only edit what I am filming. He can't use a
master shot
A master shot is a film recording of an entire dramatized scene, start to finish, from a camera angle that keeps all the players in view. It is often a long shot and can sometimes perform a double function as an establishing shot. Usually, the ma ...
if he doesn't have it. He can't make a
close-up
A close-up or closeup in filmmaking, television production, still photography, and the comic strip medium is a type of shot that tightly frames a person or object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium and long s ...
if he doesn't have it. This is our
is and Forman's
In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulas or copulae; list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject (grammar), subject of a sentence (linguistics), sentence to a subject complement, such as the word '' ...
job."
Critics have often admired Ondříček's success in sustaining low-contrast lighting throughout the film, rendering "a sweetly mysterious softness, as if a principle of compassion existed in the world alongside its cruelty".
The big dance was the film's most sustained and elaborate sequence, so two cameras were used, with frequent recourse to
hand-holding and
telephoto zooming in order both to sustain the documentary-style look and feel and to take pressure off the performers, who were not always sure whether they were being included in the shots.
During filming, the set was visited by British director
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for h ...
, whose film ''
This Sporting Life
''This Sporting Life'' is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a rugby league footbal ...
'' was greatly admired by Forman. Anderson was so impressed by Ondříček's work, that he brought the cameraman to England to film ''
The White Bus
''The White Bus'' is a 1967 British short drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. The screenplay was jointly adapted with Shelagh Delaney from a short story in her collection ''Sweetly Sings the Donkey'' (1963). ''The White Bus'' was also the fi ...
'' and ''
if....'', announcing that he had found a person with a new sensibility, “a new pair of eyes”.
Ironically, the storyline of the film was replayed in real life. One of the nonprofessional actresses, a blonde factory worker, had a torrid affair with a technician who was part of the film crew. Although the man neglected to tell her that he was married with a child, he promised to send for her when he got back to Prague and set her up in an apartment in the capital city. After waiting for a long time to hear from him, and telling all her friends that she would shortly be summoned to her love nest, she packed up her belongings and traveled to Prague, only to be spurned in no uncertain terms. The consequence of this situation was grimmer than the
denouement
Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and scholar ...
of the film; the girl was embarrassed to return home, became a prostitute, went to jail, attempted suicide and finally emigrated to Australia, where there was a shortage of women, especially among Czech emigrants.
Editing
Once principal photography was finished, Forman found himself with miles of raw material, so he and his editor, Miroslav Hájek, spent many long hours organizing the footage into a series of situations, like the "big dance" situation and the "meeting the parents" situation. In turn, each of these situations are constructed out of sequences of gags in which the characters improvise, in the words of commentator Constantin Parvulescu, "like various instruments of a band": "Many of these situations can be broken down into gags. There are several such gags reminiscent of early comedy in ''Loves of a Blonde'': the soldiers-getting-off-the-train gag; the wine-bottle gag; the wedding-ring gag; the palm-reading gag; the roll-up-blinds gag; and the three-guys-in-two-beds gag."
Interspersed with these gags are extended character improvisations, such as Milda's discussion of Picasso, his mother's rants at the dining table, and the factory supervisor's appeal for the army's support.
Additional scenes
Once the film had been released in Czechoslovakia, Forman sought an international distributor, who informed him that the film was too short for American audiences and that it didn't have enough nudity in it; so Forman was coerced into shooting some additional scenes that were never shown for domestic consumption. One of these scenes, which was included in the US version, involved a slapstick sequence in which Milda, the pianist, tries to pick up a buxom girl on the streets of Prague, only to have her trick him into entering the wrong bedroom of the four-story building in which she lives, disturbing the sleeping residents.
Themes
Film scholar Peter Hames has summarized three themes of ''Loves of a Blonde'' that have been discussed repeatedly in critical writings on the film, themes that have been something of a constant throughout Forman's career: "the impermanence of young love, the confusion and despair of middle age, and the gulf between the generations". Another theme that is often identified involves the awkwardness and confusion surrounding sex in a repressed society.
Most critics have also commented on the confluence of comedy and sadness in the film's depiction of everyday life in a totalitarian state,
although while some consider ''Loves of a Blonde'' Forman's most pointed critique of Czech society under communism, others point out that the grim conditions are not solely due to misguided public policy, but that individuals create their own isolation as well.
Reception
When ''Loves of a Blonde'' was first released, there was a sense of betrayal on the part of the Zruč nad Sázavou shoe factory that had hosted the filmmakers on location and considerable consternation among authorities at the Ministry of Light Industry, with both organizations feeling that the comically unlovely depiction of social conditions in Czech factory towns would make it even harder to recruit workers than it already was. To everyone's surprise, though, the movie functioned as a "great big classified ad", in that hundreds of Czech boys traveled to Zruč nad Sázavou and camped out in the woods in hopes of hooking up with the female factory workers, who responded appropriately by sneaking out of their dorms at night for assignations with the campers.
''Loves of a Blonde'' sold out in theaters throughout Czechoslovakia. The film was the recipient of the
Order of Klement Gottwald, an award that recognized exemplary works "for building of socialist homeland". Forman was later to say: "The award from the first communist president of the land and a legendary boozer was more of an embarrassment than anything else. The only good thing about it was the fat envelope that came with the ribbon. It contained 20 000 CZK, nearly a year's salary".
''Loves of a Blonde'' was submitted to a number of the major film festivals of the day: it was the opening film of the 1966
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, it is ...
, was an invited entry in that year's
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...
and was nominated for the highest prize at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...
.
Shortly after it was completed, it was purchased by a Czech distribution company called Filmexport, only to be re-sold as part of a multi-picture package to a firm called CBK, which proceeded to air it on television through a number of 24-hour movie channels.
The film was nominated for the
Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
in 1967.
It was ranked No. 89 in ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Critical response
Critical reaction within Czechoslovakia tended to focus on the film's perceived negativity with regard to social and political conditions in the country, and, for that reason, it was not distributed at all within the Soviet Union.
On the whole, international critics of the time praised ''Loves of a Blonde'', with positive reviews published by ''
Saturday Review'', ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
'', ''
Sight and Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...
'',
''Harper's'', and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. One of the film's most influential champions was Jean Collet, writing in ''
Cahiers du cinéma
''Cahiers du Cinéma'' (, ) is a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.Itzkoff, Dave (9 February 2009''Cahiers Du Cinéma Will Continue to Publish''The New York TimesMacnab, Ge ...
'' that, by capturing the momentary indiscretions of his characters on the screen, Forman forces the audience into a voyeuristic situation that induces embarrassment and laughter. There were dissenting voices, however: Phillip J. Hartung, writing in
''Commonweal'', compared the film unfavorably with Ivan Passer's contemporaneous ''
Intimate Lighting
''Intimate Lighting'' ( cs, Intimní osvětlení) is a Czech drama film directed by Ivan Passer. It was released in 1965. It is widely considered as a major film of the Czechoslovak New Wave and to be Passer's most significant film.
Plot
A cello ...
'', while Robert Hatch, in
''The Nation'', felt that ''Loves of a Blonde'' was an "endearing but artless" film, with its long central section of the big dance having little to do with the main plot. In a lengthy article in ''
Film Comment
''Film Comment'' is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, ''Film Co ...
'', Kirk Bond compared the "ordinariness" of ''Loves of a Blonde'' unfavorably with other Czech films of the period that he believed displayed greater mastery of narrative technique.
More recent retrospective reviews of the film have been equally mixed, with some critics, like Dennis Schwartz, writing that, "its simple but meaningful story has captured the emotions of its subject in a timeless and real fashion", while others, like David Nusair, find fault: "Presumably, the film's supposed to be a quirky and revealing slice of life – but since the central character is never developed beyond the superficial, it's impossible to care about her".
It holds a 94% rating on the review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
from 17 reviewers who, on average, scored it 8.00 on a scale of 10.
Legacy
''Loves of a Blonde'' has often been identified as one of the most significant and ambitious productions of the
Czech New Wave
The Czechoslovak New Wave (also Czech New Wave) is a term used for the Czechoslovak filmmakers who started making movies in the 1960s. The directors commonly included are Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Pavel Juráček, Jiří Men ...
,
a movement in which a group of young filmmakers, many of whom were educated by
the national film academy in Prague (including Forman,
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár (1 April 1918 – 1 June 1979) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian-born Slovak film writer and director of History of the Jews in Hungary, Jewish heritage.
As a filmmaker, he worked in Czechoslovakia, the United States, and Canada. ...
,
Věra Chytilová
Věra Chytilová (2 February 1929 – 12 March 2014) was an avant-garde Czech film director and pioneer of Czech cinema. Banned by the Czechoslovak government in the 1960s, she is best known for her Czech New Wave film, ''Sedmikrásky'' ('' Dais ...
and
Jiří Menzel
Jiří Menzel () (23 February 1938 – 5 September 2020) was a Czech film director, theatre director, actor, and screenwriter. His films often combine a humanistic view of the world with sarcasm and provocative cinematography. Some of these films ...
, among others), took significant political risks by using cinema to protest the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state.
This movement has been attributed to a period of cultural and political reform, starting in 1962, during which filmmakers were given state support, but were also allowed a certain amount of artistic freedom, enabling them to create movies with the stated objective of making "the Czech people collectively aware that they were participants in a system of oppression and incompetence which had brutalized them all."
In particular, Forman,
Ivan Passer
Ivan Passer (10 July 1933 – 9 January 2020) was a Czech film director and screenwriter, best known for his involvement in the Czechoslovak New Wave and for directing American films such as '' Born to Win'' (1971), ''Cutter's Way'' (1981) and '' ...
and
Jaroslav Papoušek
Jaroslav Papoušek (19 February 1920 – 16 July 1996) was a Czech film director and screenwriter. He started as a sculptor, before writing screenplays with Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer. In 1968 he started directing his own screenplays.
Sele ...
have collectively become known as the "Forman school" of filmmaking,
which combines an interest in documentary realism, including consistent focus on the quotidian, with a surrealistic tendency to "uncover the hidden side of reality, its comical or monstrous quality which lies just beneath everyday mishaps, stutters and waverings". Diane Sippl has noted that, once Forman came to America and created his high-profile Hollywood productions, such as
''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'',
''Hair'' and
''Amadeus'', he was able to introduce into commercial cinema the same qualities that characterized his early films like ''Loves of a Blonde'': "An acute observation of the ironic details of mundane life; an intimate understanding of emotions, both projected and silenced; a keen sensitivity to the moment when solemnity melts into farce,"
English director
Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (''Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessne ...
has stated that the mixture of professional and non-professional actors in ''Loves of a Blonde'' had a significant influence on him and other international filmmakers, by creating an atmosphere in which non-professionals who live in the milieu depicted by the film bring an expertise and authenticity which serves as "a touchstone for everyone else in the film", while professionals bring knowledge of film craft, which can be helpful to their inexperienced colleagues.
Although some performers who, at the time, were not professional later became so, one of the professional actors, Vladimír Pucholt, who played a major role, Milda the pianist, soon gave up acting, relocated to Canada and became a pediatrician.
In April 2019, a restored version of the film was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the
2019 Cannes Film Festival
The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president. The Palme d'Or went to the South Korean film ''Parasite'', directed by Bong Joon-ho; Bong became t ...
.
Home media
''Loves of a Blonde'' was released in
VHS video format in 1987 by RCA/Columbia Pictures and re-released in that format in 2000 by
Janus Films, Home Vision Cinema. In 2002, it was released as a
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
by
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
, in a new digital transfer, with restored image and sound, a video interview with director Milos Forman, a deleted scene and new & improved English subtitle translation. Since 2010, a version has been available as part of Criterion's
"Essential art house" series.
Awards and nominations
See also
*
*
*
List of Czech Academy Award Winners and Nominees
This is a list of Czech Academy Award winners and nominees. This list details the performances of Czech actors, actresses, and films that have either been submitted or nominated for, or have won, an Academy Award.
Best International Feature Film
...
References
Bibliography
* Forman, Miloš and
Jan Novák. ''Turnaround: A Memoir''. New York: Villard Books, 1994.
* Hames, Peter. ''The Czechoslovak New Wave''. London: Wallflower Press, 2005.
*
Liehm, Antonin J. ''The Miloš Forman stories''. White Plains NY: International Arts and Sciences Press, 1975.
* Slater, Thomas J. ''Miloš Forman: A Bio-Bibliography''. New York: Greenwood, 1985.
External links
*
*
*
''Loves of a Blonde''an essay by
David Kehr
David Kehr (born 1953) is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the ''Chicago Reader'' and the ''Chicago Tribune,'' he later wrote a weekly column for ''The New York Times'' on DVD releases. He later became a c ...
at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
''Loves of a Blonde''review from the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loves Of A Blonde
1965 films
1960s black comedy films
1960s romantic comedy-drama films
1960s Czech-language films
Czechoslovak black-and-white films
Films directed by Miloš Forman
Films set in Prague
Films shot in the Czech Republic
Czech black comedy films
Czech romantic comedy-drama films
Films with screenplays by Ivan Passer
Films with screenplays by Miloš Forman
1965 comedy films
1965 drama films